Disgusting. They seriously can just walk away from all those hurting people?

House Republicans abruptly pulled the plug Tuesday night on their promise to take up this week an emergency supplemental disaster aid bill for Northeast states damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

The decision is a stunning reversal since just hours before New Jersey lawmakers were preparing for floor debate Wednesday as outlined under a strategy promoted by no less than Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

Indeed the Appropriations Committee had gone so far as to file a $27 billion bill Tuesday together with an amendment to be offered by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) seeking an additional $33 billion to match the Senate passed package of last week.

Absent a change of heart, the upshot now is that the Senate bill will die with this Congress on Thursday at noon. And the whole affair is sure to bring back memories of the famous Daily News headline in 1975—“Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

The empty suit that is Mitt Romney is now relegated to our bad-memory banks. He lost. Thank goodness he lost.

And Mrs. "This is Hard" Romney was right, because this turned out to be even harder for Republicans than they thought. Team Romney did everything they could to lie, cheat, and steal their way into the White House, giddy over the opportunity to take on a president who was trying to dig us out of the disastrous Bush economy with no help at all from the opposing party. Just the opposite in fact. But Republicans obstructed and smeared their way right out of a victory.

Who's giddy now?

What a relief that President Obama is still in the White House.

What a relief that he will be the one who will replace any Supreme Court justices who retire.

What a relief that he will continue to protect women's reproductive rights.

What a relief that he will continue to push for equal pay for women.

What a relief that he will make every effort to eliminate those insanely unfair Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

I will keep fighting hard with other progressives for programs we still need, for civil rights issues that have yet to be addressed, and for improvements where I feel the president has disappointed. But nobody's perfect-- nobody-- so, that in no way discounts the enormous number of accomplishments and successes that President Obama has managed to pull off despite the onslaught of Republican money, voter suppression, and the nasty, vicious assaults on his agenda, his character... and his lineage.

So while there are major challenges ahead, the outcome of this election was a huge relief...